D.S.K.: Is Anyone Innocent?

The New York Times broke the news last night that the rape case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn may be collapsing, after interviews with the accuser revealed numerous inconsistencies. I am wary of rushing to judgment this time, while having already done so with great enthusiasm, about which I feel considerable rue. I was “sure” D.S.K. was guilty, and I argued with my French friends about it—they were appalled that I could believe this wasn’t a witch hunt, or a conspiracy, or a case of American puritanism. (Whatever it is, though, it has inspired a rather salubrious soul-searching in France about the nature of sexual predation.) I was proud of the New York Police Department and prosecutor’s office for standing with a poor, powerless woman against a rich, powerful man. Blinded by stereotypes, perhaps.

At the same time, the emerging information about the woman, who is sticking to her rape accusation, does not necessarily exculpate D.S.K. (He has said all along that he is innocent.) It used to be that only a certified virgin, a nun in a habit, or a matron “above reproach” could make a rape charge stick, and—plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose—that still seems to be the case. Let’s allow that all of this new information is true: the woman is liar; she has shady friends; they used her bank account to launder money; she has five cell phones, not one; she called a convicted drug dealer whom she knows to discuss profiting from the case—a conversation recorded by prison authorities shortly after D.S.K.’s arrest. She also seems to have lied to the police and prosecutors (it was they who turned up this new evidence, not D.S.K.’s attorneys) about why she sought political asylum. (She mentioned rape in her native Guinea and genital mutilation, but neither of those traumas appears on her application for asylum.) She is not, as she appeared to be, a devout, celibate young widow. (There was mention of a “fiancé,” one of the men who deposited large sums of cash in her account.) And on her word, the head of the International Monetary Fund, and a leading contender for the French Presidency—a man of great gifts and promise—has been ruined and humiliated.

It will now be very difficult, if not impossible, to put this woman on a witness stand. And it may well be that a gross injustice to Strauss-Kahn has been perpetrated. But, as it stands now, the moral of this murky story is that bad things happen to all kinds of people. He was convicted by public opinion on the basis of his prior sexual history as a roué. She is now being convicted on the basis of her “inconsistencies.” But I find it depressing that, in 2011, a woman is presumed guilty if she isn’t innocent.